The FLECSLAB multiplier event (in hybrid mode) took place during the EUTOPIA week in CY on Wednesday 27 November 2024.

The FLECSLAB (»Flexible Learning Communities Supporting Lifelong Learning Across Borders«) project, involving six founding partners of the EUTOPIA Alliance, started its journey in January 2022. As we are approaching the end of our project, we organised an internal multiplier event for the EUTOPIA community interested in education. The project team shared the key findings and results of the research, which are presented below.

FLECSLAB is a response to the European Commission's ambitions in the field of lifelong learning by developing flexible mechanisms that recognise short-term intensive learning efforts in a transnational context. FLECSLAB thus extends the work of the EUTOPIA Connected Learning Communities in terms of international networking of good practises in active learning.

FLECSLAB has produced resources, the Lifelong Learning Toolbox and the Lifelong Learning Business Model, to support higher education practitioners and policymakers in developing a lifelong learning pedagogy in a transnational context with a sustainable offer.

The opening speech and introduction were given by Tomaž Deželan, coordinator of FLECSLAB and representative of the University of Ljubljana (UL) as lead partner of the consortium, and Rosette S’Jegers from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), who coordinated one of the main deliverables, the Lifelong Learning Toolbox, in collaboration with Lieve Van den Brande (VUB), Jo Angouri and Mélina Delmas from the University of Warwick (UoW).

Christopher David Tulloch from the University of Pompeu Fabra-Barcelona (UPF) gave the closing keynotes on the development of the FLECSLAB toolkit, which was created in collaboration with Aleix Martí Danés (UPF) and previously mentioned research done by VUB and UoW. The toolkit consists of guidelines for academics and public sector partners in the field of lifelong learning. The LLL Toolbox is designed as a specialised toolkit for higher education institutions open to non-modal learners.

The WP2 “Lifelong Learning Business model” coordinated by the UL was then briefly summarised by Tomaž Deželan. Ivan Svetlik from the UL presented the business model as an organisational tool for EUTOPIA CLCs and possibly also for other lifelong learning stakeholders. He presented three alternatives from the LLL ecosystems and dimensions identified in FLECSLAB (regulated – highly structured, semi-structured and fragmented system that is less structured).

Anna-Maria Fjellman from the University of Gothenburg presented the research report Identifying barriers and enablers for maintaining LLL capacity. The report complements previous efforts in the EUTOPIA education model and existing perspectives from the European Commission (2020) on barriers and enablers to university-industry collaboration in education. It focuses on some of the conditions for maintaining LLL capacity in European HEIs that are imposed by policies, regulations and legislation; and secondly, the identification of barriers and facilitators as important determinants of how HEIs can collaborate with different types of external actors.

The event hosted two leaders from EUTOPIA CLC who presented their views on the benefits of FLECSLAB and also served as a test bed for analysing the LLL potential in EUTOPIA.

Thomas Crispeels from VUB presented the work in the CLC Technological Business Transfer, and Boštjan Botas Kenda (UL) and Dominique Sciamma from the University CY Cergy Paris, gave us examples of the ongoing activities and future ambitions in the EUTOPIA CLC Design & Science.

The event ended with a discussion on the sustainability of the project results and the way forward. Broader testing of the overall business model for LLL is essential to evaluate, review and update it. In addition, closer and deeper collaboration – co-creation - with CLCs is needed to improve comparative implementation and evaluation.

Ideas for the continuation of FLECSLAB were also promising steps to ensure sustainability and extend the work on the already identified lifelong learning needs with a focus on the non-traditional learners in HEIs and European alliances such as EUTOPIA.